Whenever I survey my audience, the biggest concerns that food photographers have are related to pricing.

Pricing your food photos is definitely tricky and involves so many different factors. How you price your photos depends on your skill set and experience, your target market, where you live, and even your business model.

However, in the several years I’ve been teaching and coaching other food photographers, one thing that I have noticed is that most photographers undercharge, and often by a lot.

Undercharging is problematic because it’s a difficult cycle to break out of. The clients that you most likely will want to work with wonder why you’re so cheap and assume you don’t understand the costs involved in a photo shoot. By pricing low, you’ll ultimately attract the cheap clients, who are often more difficult to work with than clients with deeper pockets.

The bottom line is that you need to charge a rate that covers your cost of business and allows you to make a profit. It doesn’t really matter what the competition is charging if that rate doesn’t cover your business expenses. If you don’t know your cost of doing business, you need to figure that out before you decide on your rate.

You need to add up all your monthly expenses and yearly expenses divided by twelve to get a monthly average. This is how much you need to make just to bring you to zero!

Day Rate vs. Package Pricing

There are different types of photographers working today, and there are different business models.

Some photographer specialize in shooting content for social media and brands, and often take on commissioned work that they can shoot remotely at home and then simply deliver the files to the client. In this scenario, they are usually responsible for the food styling. And work alone rather than on a team. They may have standard or package pricing or a rate card.

This can work fine if there aren’t a lot of variables from shot to shot, and it’s great if the photography is more product-based for the same reason.

Package pricing is problematic because one shot can take you several hours to nail, while another shot can be taken rather quickly. You can end up working a lot of hours that you can’t charge for. This is the major drawback of package pricing.

I recommend in most circumstances that food photographers charge a day rate or a creative fee based on the scope of the whole project. I come up with a number that is based on how long it will take me to shoot the images outlined in the brief. Typically I can shoot 5-10 images a day. It really depends on what I’m shooting.

The Costs of Production

Unless you’re working alone in a home studio on commissioned client work, there will be a lot of costs associated with any given production. These costs are fixed.

Examples of these cost are:

• Studio rental
• Equipment or lighting rental
• Food stylist
• Assistant
• Food
• Props
• Digital Tech
• Meals for crew

There may be much more. These are the costs of production and you need to understand these costs to do a proper estimate. If you get these numbers wrong, they can end up eating into your profit.

If You’re Not Getting Jobs

If you’re not getting jobs or you do a lot of estimates that go nowhere, then you’re not connecting with the right client. Your target market is off.

Granted, losing out on a lot of gigs is part-and-parcel of being a freelancer and creative. However, if you’re not getting enough work to sustain you, chances are that the clients you’re pitching to, or the clients that come to you, are not the right fit.

For example, I get a lot of enquiries via my website but it’s rare that any of these enquiries actually lead to work. Sometimes they do, but more often than not, the client has chosen the first three or four names from a Google search and asked for an estimate or a rate card.

Most of the time as well, they have no brief, no shot list, or even any idea of how many images they need and exactly what will be in them. They just know they need photos and are reaching out to several photographers. Many are small businesses that have never worked with a photographer before.

In this case, it’s impossible to do a proper estimate without this information. How do you know what is involved in producing a shoot and how much of your time it will take if you don’t now what you’re shooting?

My process is to get the client on the phone, ask a lot of questions, and often—educate the client.

However, many clients couldn’t be bothered, and will go will go with the ;first photographer that will give them a number.

Don’t do this. Don’t even give them a range. Even if you say it’s a guesstimate, they will grab onto that number and expect it. Most likely, that number—whatever it is—will be too low.

If you’re missing out on a lot of jobs and are not getting much work, you’re likely not connecting with the right target market.

Figuring out your target and connecting with them is how you get clients as a food photographer. This requires research, and a lot of pitching and networking. Not everyone can be your client. It’s better to have one client a month that will pay your rate than five cheap ones, where you need to do five times the work.

In fact, that is my personal goal. One to two clients every month. Food photography requires a lot of planning and post production, so a couple of jobs a month is enough for me.

To Sum Up

Do your research and really consider all the costs of production. Don’t go looking for ways to cut important line items down for the sake of coming in cheaper or under budget, or it will come back to haunt you.

When it comes to your own fees, you may ;ind that until you get quite a lot of experience, that shoots will take you at least 25% longer than you think they will.

Pricing is not easy, but it does get easier with experience. Everyone makes mistakes with pricing. I know I still do. Pricing is an art, one that involves negotiation.If you want to read more about pricing your food photography, check out these posts:

What You Need to Know About Pricing Your Food Photography

Pricing Your Photography: What Is Your Profit?

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